An interesting idea. I've heard of a professor doing that before; I think he just used a die. In addition to being fair, students know that you could randomly choose anyone so they better know their stuff. I actually don't remember being in a class where the teacher asks specific students to answer a question; usually they just ask the class and whoever raises their hand gets the question.

In these cases either no one answers, or always the same guy. You know, that one who sits in some distance from anyone else, who actually read the book before the class started, the one without the iPod in the ear during lecture.

You know, the guy in the mirror one or two decades back....

An interesting idea. I've heard of a professor doing that before; I think he just used a die. In addition to being fair, students know that you could randomly choose anyone so they better know their stuff. I actually don't remember being in a class where the teacher asks specific students to answer a question; usually they just ask the class and whoever raises their hand gets the question.

 

the advice in education courses is to have a standing rule in your classes that no-one should answer without being named ("no class answers, please"), and that you should ask the question, then wait between 5 and 15 seconds depending on the level of complexity of the question, then name someone. That way everyone thinks about the question

That is a very smart idea.

 

Does the randomiser involves programing?

not really. It's an excel spreadsheet which uses a random number and the "lookup" function to look up a student name from a list and then displays it in large text in another cell. The only programming is involved in the button which makes it recaculate it fifteen times so that the names flicker through lots of choices before settling on one... just for fun.

 

there is a bit more programming in the attendance-taking section but it's all recorded macros so i never really had to learn any visual basic.